John Ruffell has extensive experience in market and competitive analysis, product-roadmap strategic planning, and has led a significant number of multi-discipline, multi-million-dollar high-tech product development projects. He has also held the position of Chief Technical Officer for the Ion Implantation Business Group of Applied Materials Inc., Santa Clara, California, the world’s largest semiconductor equipment company (US$12b sales). Today John continues to be very active with high-tech business interests and consulting work.
He began his technical career in the AURA 1 Laboratory, Physics Department, University of Auckland, as a member of the team developing and building ion beam equipment for nuclear research. In 1966 this group founded ANAC Ltd., believed to be the first high-tech start-up to come out of the University of Auckland. ANAC later became the kernel for Buckley Systems Ltd., and today New Zealand enjoys a market-leading high-tech ion beam equipment industry built upon physics research at the University of Auckland more than 50 years ago. To date export revenue for New Zealand exceeds $1.5B.
John has been a principal in several other start-ups and during the last decade has been an investment committee member and consultant to UniServices. With connections in U.S. high-tech developed over more than 30 years, and experience with both start-ups and larger corporations he has been providing valuable introductions, insight, guidance and mentoring towards competing in the U.S. market.
John holds a number of patents. He was born and educated in